new spalted maple coffee table for sale

we've got a new spalted maple coffee for sale in the local

art manchester gallery

along with our other stuff there.  the show runs through columbus day weekend and you can see the
work of over 30 talented vermont artists ... friday,saturday and sunday through 10/8 ..

i will be sitting in the gallery on sunday the 8th.  stop in and 'say hi if you are in town

this is the third one of three from that log cut by my friend porter brown

back in the 90s .. he gave me several pieces from it, and after he died, 

i was able to purchase some of the pieces he left behind from his daughter last year

this one was almost 4" thick when we started, but ...

the flattening process took almost an inch off it .. that hardmaple

sure likes to move around when it's drying

anyway, i'm pretty please with how it came out, and it is completely

au naturel, no fill in the cracks, just a scraped, sanded and finished 

piece of beautiful spalted maple

r.i.p. porter brown .... one of the greats ..

art manchester!  across from the equinox hotel, manchester  village

lots to see there ...

a custom cherry bar

along with bennington marble and granite, and GSK climate control, 

who engineered the stone and the plumbing, we installed

this custom cherry bar cabinet last week.  beautiful flamed black granite top and 

a hand hammered copper sink in a beautiful sunroom.

we've been working on it for a bit now, and i am glad it is in its new home now.

you can see a little of the process below ..

as usual, it starts with a cad drawing and a cut list for myron at irion lumber.

beautiful 15-16" wide matched cherry for this piece

it is loosely based on this paint and maple sideboard we made back in the late 80s

blank slate in the room

 

we also did a cardboard mockup with a full size drawing ...

step one, the ply case

add the end panels, doors, drawers, and a template 

for the granite folks, and we are good to go .. well,

actually, as usual, there is a little more to it than that ..

 gotta deal with those off center, pesky pipes that have to be moved

so i made the jig below for the plumbers and set it up for them ..

that worked until i had my 'problem thoughts' when i awoke the morning of the installation ..

we now had to get the fairly heavy cabinet over the pipes and into place in the corner 

 with no place to stand .. brain storm

solution ??? remove the cabinet from the base .. 

place blocks to raise the box up above the top of the pipes,

slide the box over the pipes and remove one set of blocks at a time ..

fortunately, the supply pipes were only a bit above the top of the base, and the plastic drain

pipe had yet to be glued in, so we only needed 3 sets of 2 x 4 blocks ...

all that anxiety for nothing ... 

a claro walnut slab desk

we put this one all together for the first time today .. 

set up the cardboard and got lucky with the lighting.  i rarely get it this good.

it's been in the works for a while, and now it could be leaving as soon as tomorrow ..

two drawers, some secret compartments and a beautiful piece of claro walnut.

you can follow the process below.

we started with the claro slab that's been on the wall of the finish room for a while,

waiting for exactly the right client to come along ... in the end we 

angled the end cuts in a bit and skipped the horizontal cuts as unnecessary ..

 next up was a 1/8th scale model

with photos from two different angles

we put the cad drawing on the bottom of the model so we could build it accurately

steel parts were next and a full size layout on the bottom of the slab

and sam was slammed with deadlines in the metal shop, so trevor made 

the steel pieces and sam welded them up ..

all together now

except for the secret compartments, which will remain secret, all for now.

possibly some on site photos after the delivery ...

a nice repair

sweet little desk top in the shop for a tune up .. 

the tambour door on the right was in two pieces and of course,

would not come out of the case except if we removed the back of the cabinet.

                             like this .. lots of rusty and old different kinds of nails holding it on

the canvas backing was split on one of the five door parts

and when we removed it, there was some old newspaper too

for some reason ??

                                               hard to date it .. might be the twenties or 30s

we put a new piece of  canvas on the pieces with sandbags for weights 

because the door had a sections that was curved at the far end ..

aside from this proper family protrait we found inside,

there is an interesting thing happening with this cabinet ... 

an acquaintance called asking me to fix it a few weeks ago .. i definitely

know the person, but i didn't write anything down like the name or

number at the time since they said they would be dropping it off.  so, i went

off to golf last friday and there was this desk top sitting on a bench 

in the shop on saturday morning.

when the boys came in monday morning i asked whose it was and they said

someone's brother, with out of state plates, dropped it off and when trevor went 

to talk to him after he carried it into the shop, the gentleman was already driving away .. 

anyone recognize this?  i need some help here ..

a calro walnut island top

we installed a claro walnut slab island top on friday, 

just in time for the labor day weekend

another beautiful slab from goodhope hardwoods in kemblesville, pa.

 in the rough, with measurements

in the shop with a layout to size chalked on .. 

one live edge, one straight one

final cuts

this is our first look at the figure in the smoothed slab

and in case you are wondering what it takes to smooth one of these slabs, 

it takes about a bag and a half of shavings to get one this size smooth

we had a finish problem on this one .. aliens .. too hot? too cool?

too sunny? not sanded enough?  bad can of varnish? who knows? ...

trevor made short work of it though, and below is the slab in the sun,

ready to roll friday ..

everyone's happy!